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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28719753">Helpless</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/triplefish213/pseuds/triplefish213'>triplefish213</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Wings and Flyte [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Septimus Heap - Angie Sage</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Blood and Injury, Gen, Wings AU, another angst fic ahaha, anyway, idk i'll delete this tag if i don't write it, its...its sad ok, me? writing a multi chapter fic? its more likely than u think, possibly??, we do be writing different perspectives of other people's fics 😳, well actually the reason is that the people like angst fics but shh, why marcia lost her wing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 11:02:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,359</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28719753</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/triplefish213/pseuds/triplefish213</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Alther's perspective of Marcia's time in Dungeon Number One (aka Qwilrains fic but to the left a little)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alther Mella &amp; Marcia Overstrand</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Wings and Flyte [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1991479</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Marcia was dying. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>She was dying, and there was nothing Alther could do to help but stay by her side and hope. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>She’d been injured before being thrown into dungeon number one, a stray slash from a sword, or some such thing, and it had hardly seemed an issue until it got infected on the second day. Hadn’t seemed an issue until, a week later, it got worse. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>And Alther hadn’t noticed. Not until Marcia started stuttering slightly in the middle of a sentence, shaking. Her hand flew to her back, trying to feel where her wing joined her body. She couldn’t quite reach, so Alther floated around to behind her, and would have thrown up if he was able.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It was rotting. What should have been a clean cut, easy enough to bandage and heal, had festered, and had only gotten worse as the days passed. It must have been agony, yet as far as he could remember, Marcia had made no mention of it outside of something bordering on a half-conscious joke a few days ago. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He was staring, nearly transparent with shock, and he <em>couldn’t look away</em>. Marcia was looking back at him. She was picking at her fingernails, a nervous habit he’d always known her to have, and she looked scared. That made everything worse. Something so familiar with something so... <em> not</em>. Because she was going to die. Marcia was going to die, unless she could somehow see a healer, and Alther couldn’t quite let himself hope for that. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Alther?” </p>
<p> </p>
<p>She was looking at him, eyes wide, and he realised that maybe he didn’t need to tell her just how deadly it likely was. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Alther, how bad is it?” it could’ve been mistaken for an order if it weren’t for the slight wobble in her voice.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There was no harm in letting her hope, right?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s not that bad. It looks like it hurts, but I’m sure you’ll live.” he smiled as reassuringly as he could, even though the lie felt so, so wrong.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Marcia nodded, slumping back against the wall. “Good.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It took a moment to realise she was asleep.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>“Marcia? Marcia!”</p><p> </p><p><em> One hour. </em>He had left for <em> one hour.</em> Which was, apparently, all it took for Marcia to entirely disappear from Dungeon Number One. There was no way to know what had happened, and no signs of a struggle, though that wasn’t surprising, since she’d been unconscious when he’d left. </p><p> </p><p>“<em>Marcia!</em>” </p><p> </p><p>He was panicking. If Marcia was gone then that likely meant she was dead, or that DomDaniel had taken it upon himself to move her, which meant he would have to find her all over again and if the infection got worse then it meant that she would die, wherever she was, and that she would die alone. He couldn’t let that happen.</p><p> </p><p>One quick search of the Palace later, and of the Wizard Tower, and Alther was thoroughly out of ideas. The only other place he could think she might be was the Badlands, but as he hovered uncertainly in the arch of the Wizard Tower, he heard voices. And, glancing in their direction, he saw Marcia.</p><p> </p><p>He was there in an instant. She was unconscious, head drooping, and being half-carried, half-dragged by two custodian guards. There were several more around them, presumably in case she woke up and tried to fight, but it didn’t seem like they were necessary. They were laughing together about something, joking and smiling even as they carried Marcia, his apprentice, his <em> child,</em> back towards Dungeon Number One. </p><p> </p><p>And her wing was gone.</p><p> </p><p>Her left wing, which had been rotting and infected, and could have been saved easily if she had just been kept somewhere, <em> anywhere, </em>but that horrible dungeon, was gone. He knew why. They wanted her to suffer, putting effort into fixing the wing wasn’t necessary when they could just get rid of it. It wasn’t like she’d be needing it. Alther was unsure if he’d ever been so angry.</p><p> </p><p>People in the houses along the street were staring. They were frightened, seeing their Extraordinary Wizard so helpless, and it was all he could do to appear to each of them in turn, taking every bit of acting skill he’d acquired in his time at the top of the tower, and smile, and wave, and try to make it seem like it was fine, like there was a way out of this.</p><p> </p><p>Which there was. There always was. He just had to find it. For Marcia’s sake, and for the Castle.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They’d thrown the wing down with her. <em> Of course they had. </em> Alther was hardly surprised. It was lying there, limp and dead-looking in the little light there was, the feathers twisted and bloodied, and it was <em> right there </em> and it would be the first thing Marcia would see when she woke up.</p><p> </p><p>And she would wake up. Just because she’d been out for a day didn’t mean she wouldn’t wake up. Did it? </p><p> </p><p>He left her side once, to check a sound he’d thought was the door opening, and when he returned, she was awake. Awake, and sat with her back to the wall, hugging her knees, crying. Her remaining wing was wrapped around her like some kind of blanket, or maybe a way to hide. The amputated wing was at her feet, blood from it soaking into her shoes. So, she’d seen it.</p><p> </p><p>She glanced up when he came over, before dropping her head back onto her arms without a word. Her position changed, just slightly, to face away from him, and before he could say a word she had muttered, “Go away.”</p><p> </p><p>Alther hesitated, floating just out of arms reach, one hand half raised. In any other situation, he would know what to do; he had known Marcia since she was seventeen, had seen her cry when she broke her finger on a door, seen her decidedly <em> not </em>cry at the news of her father’s death. He’d seen her angry, and scared, but nothing had prepared him for this and it broke his heart.</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t leave. He didn’t exactly <em> stay</em>, either, just waited as far from her as he could get without leaving the dungeon. He stayed visible too. It seemed only fair that she knew he was there, and besides, he couldn’t stand to let her think she was alone.</p><p> </p><p>Marcia did look up again, eventually, tears tracks still very much visible on her cheeks, though her shaking had stopped. She opened her mouth as if to say something, then stopped like she couldn’t remember what it had been. She turned her head away, staring resolutely at the ground, but Alther took it as an invitation to come closer, and she made no protest when he did.</p><p> </p><p>He stayed there in silence for only a moment before he asked, “Do you know what happened?”</p><p> </p><p>She continued staring at the stone floor. “I know how I got here, and I think I remember you being here, and then everything hurt and I guess I passed out?” her voice was as shaky as she was, and she looked up for confirmation, which she received in the form of a nod. “Then I maybe saw light, and it- my wing didn’t hurt anymore. Then I woke up here and…” she waved a hand at the wing on the ground.</p><p> </p><p>Alther nodded. “And- Marcia, how long do you think you’ve been here?” He had a bad feeling that she wouldn’t remember enough to know.</p><p> </p><p>“A few days? Maybe a week? Why?”</p><p> </p><p>“Two and a half weeks.”</p><p> </p><p>Her eyes went wide.</p><p> </p><p>“Marcia, I-”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s fine.” She was using the voice she only used when she was on the verge of panic, clipped sentences and emotionless words. That was a bad sign. “Leave me alone. Properly. I need to think.”</p><p> </p><p>She was serious this time, and worried as he was, she could hardly get in much more danger than this. So he left, with a concerned glance over his shoulder as he did. He’d be back soon.</p><p> </p><p>Marcia stayed where she was, watching him go. He didn’t miss the whispered “thank you” as he went.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Alther, every time I need a plot point from Deep Below to happen: Aight imma head out</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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